Fool’s Gold has been steadily tumbling down the rankings from a peak at #2, but this is the biggest drop of the year, falling 11 (!) ranks and 21pp. It is 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It has the 4th highest standard deviation on this list. Fool’s Gold is still riding on its reputation as a rush card of sorts, but as decks have trended toward engine play and have gotten generally faster and stronger, the classic Fool’s Gold rush is simply not a great strategy. It still has plenty of appeal as cheap but explosive payload, but it struggles to stand out as plenty of different cards provide Coin payload and economy.

Candlestick Maker has been tumbling down for years, but it fell just two ranks this year, starting to stabilize. Its standard deviation isn’t super high, and the unweighted ranking is the same as the weighted rank. While being a stop card ultimately limits its utility, it is one of the better cheap nonterminal sources of +Buy, and its hard to find a deck that wouldn’t mind one or two in moderation.

After plummeting 5 ranks last year, Crossroads actually gained a rank this year. It is one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. The standard deviation is somewhat high, indicating some disagreement. The dual utility as a unique draw card and a one-off double Village makes it a unique card with two distinct niches, and while it’s not the best card in either role, it can still serve a purpose.Notably, this is the first time it has been the highest ranked card from Hinterlands, surpassing Fool’s Gold.

Delve edges out Crossroads by less than a tenth of a percentage point. It gained two positions in the ranked list. Some guy voted it first, I guess, and the deviation indicates plenty of disagreement. While sometimes it doesn’t change the game very much, it can be a novel source of extra gains or a way to supercharge Big Money style decks, which gives it more utility than one might expect at first glance.

Another card that has been tumbling down the rankings for years, Squire is also starting to stabilize, falling slightly but not nearly as much as last year. A classic $2 utility card, the choice of actions, buys, or silver gaining offers a modest boost for any deck type, as long as the drawbacks of the card are kept in mind. It is three ranks higher in the unweighted list, indicating less experienced players have a stronger preference for Squire. This makes sense, as it seems to be at its best in a “good stuff” deck, one popular with new players. Some other person voted it first.

Continuing the trend of cards tumbling in the rankings for years, Lighthouse lost another rank this year. Some amount of uncertainty there, with a much higher median than others around it in the list, but Lighthouse remains a valuable way to consistently block attacks in certain decks, and the economy is a nice touch. On the other hand, it’s still a Copper and a stop card, so you generally need to compensate with extra draw.

Borrow continues climbing upward in the rankings, as its strengths in smoothing out early Buys and helping hit tricky price points are revealed to be more important than once thought. It gained two ranks over last year. It has the highest standard deviation of all of the cards on this list, though, so significant disagreement remains. Borrow is three ranks lower on the unweighted rankings.

Travelling Fair is one of the biggest winners on this list, rising 8 ranks and over 10pp. The standard deviation decreased as well, indicating a growing consensus of the strength of Travelling Fair as a topdecker and +Buy source. The highly tactical play Travelling Fair enables along with the strong synergies with certain cards such as Fool’s Gold and Counting House have raised its stature.

Courtyard plummeted four ranks this year. Its strength as a draw card for money strategies remains, but the greater prevalence of engine decks hurts it to some extent, as in an engine it takes special circumstances for it to draw significantly better than Moat (although the extra search space is more help than you’d expect). It was voted first once, and is one rank higher in the unweighted ranking.

Ratcatcher rebounded significantly from its slump last year, gaining a rank and nearly 7pp. It is one rank higher in the unweighted ranking, and has a fairly low deviation for this point of the list. Seems like everyone loves this simple, cheap nonterminal trasher. While a little slow, it’s nice that it stays out of the way once you’re done with it, making it an extremely low opportunity cost card.

Save stayed the same rank, but gained 3 percentage points on last year. The standard deviation is the highest of the entire top 15, indicating strong disagreement, and it is two ranks lower on the unweighted list. It takes awhile for players to catch on to the many tricks Save can pull off, and it is an extremely useful utility card valued by higher level players.

Lurker is the second highest new card on the list, and the only card from the Second Edition on the list. It received 1 first place vote. A game warping nonterminal gainer and trasher, it presents powerful opportunities for near-unrestricted gaining and pile control, making it a powerhouse in certain engines. There’s a fair amount of disagreement on its strength, and I suspect that is due to how it’s power level wildly varies depending on the board - but when it is good it is absolutely essential.

Hamlet is the biggest loser in the top 10, shooting down four ranks despite slightly gaining in weighted average. It is no longer the highest or even the second-highest rated village on the list. The versatility of the discard-for-Village and discard-for-Buy effects still give it strong value, but there is a lot more competing with it in this list, and more niche and powerful cards have overshadowed it.

After a large surge last year, Coin has dipped slightly, which I think mostly due to the higher regard other cards are held in rather than changing attitudes about Coin. Despite the rank drop, it gained 3 percentage points and enjoys the fourth lowest deviation on this list, indicating relative consensus on this enabler.

Alms continues its strong ascent from last year, rising 4 ranks and another 10pp. At first it may have seemed like a relatively low impact card. But the increased consistency across the first turns, fun tricks you can do with cards like Villa, and preserving the ability to gain cards during trashing turns are important strengths of Alms that have raised its stature.

Stonemason took a bit of a fall this year, dropping two ranks but staying within the top 10. Much like Coin, it seems other cards have rocketed above it in stature rather than it getting much weaker in the current Dominion environment. For a top 10 card its standard deviation is unusually high, but not more than some of the lower cards on the list.

Raze continues to… rise… in the rankings, up another 2 ranks from 2016 and a whole 10 from its debut in 2015. There’s quite a lot of utility of a cheap, nonterminal trasher that also cycles and gets rid of itself. However, it’s only the third best trasher on this list now...

Encampment rocketed from outside the top 10 all the way into the top 5, with one of the biggest gains on this list, over 14 percentage points. Draw and Actions on the same cheap card, even with the hoop to jump through of pairing it with Gold or Plunder, is just a powerful, dominating effect, and the uneven split often decides games. It also has enough utility that you don’t mind using it as a one-shot early in the game. It was voted first once.

Despite only having been around for a couple of months, there’s been a near consensus on the power and strength of Monastery, clearly the strongest $2 cost in Nocturne. The ability to trash potentially several cards with Monastery, including Copper you may have used to buy things, presents the rare opportunity to trash without immediately losing momentum. This unique quality powers it to very near the top of the rankings. Despite the power, there was a consensus that Monastery is not the best $2 in Dominion, receiving no #1 votes.

There’s quite a gap in average between the top 3 and the rest of the list, with Page averaging 13 points above Monastery, but there’s plenty of debate as to the order of these top 3 cards. This year, Page has fallen one rank to #3, below Peasant. While Page is still obviously an immensely powerful Village (Champion) and strong set of Travellers, the strength of the Warrior attack is more limited than once thought due to the opponent having access to Champion. More boards than you would expect find themselves hitting a bit of a wall despite the presence of Champion, as you still need some draw or +Buy for an engine to take flight. Despite this, Page is still quite clearly one of the most powerful cards for its cost, and actually gained 2pp in average. It received 3 first place votes.

Peasant moved up one rank, but nearly 5 percentage points, as people have warmed up to this powerful, game warping card. Featuring two excellent Travellers in Teacher and Disciple, along with respectable payload in Soldier, Peasant gives you almost everything you need to attempt the engine, as long as you carefully pick your Teacher targets. This versatility and the ability to “patch” the board you’re playing with whatever resource you may be missing is what gives Peasant the strength to surpass Page in the rankings. It received 8 first place votes, which, while impressive, is still just over a quarter of the first place votes that the #1 ranked card received.

Chapel continues to hold its vice grip on the top of this list, somehow even slightly increasing its average, and carrying by far the lowest standard deviation of the list. Despite stiff competition from a variety of powerful trashers, Chapel’s speed in getting decks razor-thin is almost unmatched in Dominion. It received over half of the first place votes (28).

Chapel continues to hold its vice grip on the top of this list, somehow even slightly increasing its average

That's a natural thing when cards get added: 2nd place isn't that much worse relative to first place anymore. The average can increase towards 1 even if relatively more people vote it 2nd than last year. Therefore, the simple average comparison is not useful in my opinion - similar to why we compare ranks only between the cards that have been around both years.

Lurker is too low down for sure. Or maybe I just never seen it bust enough yet to understand why not everyone has put it at top #3 straight away. Really weird card.

Lurker definitely can't compare with the top 3 $2s, but I did have Lurker in my top 10, so I agree it was underrated. Lurker's ability to melt piles is pretty terrifying. And, of course, it has a lot of strong synergies (actions with on-trash abilities, and most trash-for-benefit cards). But, I still haven't grokked Lurker, so I'm not sure how it compares to the other strong $2s.

The biggest oddity on this list (from my perspective) is how high Monastery is. Even among the $2 trashers, I think Raze is better (cycling and self-removal are great). In my limited experience, Monastery plays most similarly to Forager in the early turns. It's a little better at trashing Copper on turn 3/4 (if you're unlucky enough to not have a better target). Later in the game, it can't generate coins or +buy but it can (probably) trash multiple cards per turn, which is most relevant against junkers. Monastery is certainly a strong card, and I'll usually pick one up (and sometimes two), but there are a bunch of more efficient trashers it often competes with. Do you guys find that you're often able to get multi-trashes off with Monastery in the early game (say, before turn 7)?

Most of these trends match my thoughts. I'm glad to see Alms go up. Save is still too low, but seems to be on an upward trend. Travelling Fair got a well-deserved bump. Fools Gold is solid, but it doesn't define games like it used to.

The biggest oddity on this list (from my perspective) is how high Monastery is. Even among the $2 trashers, I think Raze is better (cycling and self-removal are great). In my limited experience, Monastery plays most similarly to Forager in the early turns. It's a little better at trashing Copper on turn 3/4 (if you're unlucky enough to not have a better target). Later in the game, it can't generate coins or +buy but it can (probably) trash multiple cards per turn, which is most relevant against junkers. Monastery is certainly a strong card, and I'll usually pick one up (and sometimes two), but there are a bunch of more efficient trashers it often competes with. Do you guys find that you're often able to get multi-trashes off with Monastery in the early game (say, before turn 7)?

I think it's usually fairly easy to get 2 trashes out of a Monastery play. If you open with a gainer, it happens very frequently. And Raze is somewhat underwhelming at Copper-trashing, where Monastery excels. There are more Coppers than Estates in your starting deck (edge cases aside) after all. I'd say that for single-card trashing, Raze is still a bit better due to the self-trashing option, but Raze is nevertheless somewhat slow as your only trasher, and Monastery gets you thin more quickly on some boards. That is enough for me to put Monastery ahead of Raze.

Peasant should be higher than Chapel. Page should be lower than Stonemason.

I agree with both of these points. Might have made a difference that I do so if I hadn't forgotten to mark my rankings as "finished". Ah well, I'll have to wait for next year to have a measurable impact upon the dominion community :p

Logged

"You can't help people being right for the wrong reasons...This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity; it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence."

At first glance, this list seems about right to me. The only real disagreement I have for the whole 0-2 list is still poor house. The main takeaway from the top cards here is the huge priority we're putting on early trashing. I know it sounds obvious and we all know how important trashing is, especially when it's non-terminal, but wow raze at 6? Monastery at 4? Ratcatcher at 13? My first impression is that there must be something aside from the travelers that's better, but as I look at the other cards in the top 20 or so, I guess that maybe there really isn't. The forum has spoken and a cheap trasher is more important than a cheap village (squire, hamlet, etc.).

I was quite interested to see where lurker would end up. I think 11 sounds about right, but I could understand vaulting it into the top 10 with all the neat and unique tricks it can do with things like cultist, fortress, squire, etc. Gaining potion cards, high priced actions, and draining piles make it a very curious card with unique potential. I bet it gets bumped to the top 10 eventually.

I agree with both of these points. Might have made a difference that I do so if I hadn't forgotten to mark my rankings as "finished". Ah well, I'll have to wait for next year to have a measurable impact upon the dominion community :p

I feel you, man. I didn't submit mine because I didn't finish it by the deadline. I feel like I'm back in college and I didn't finish an assignment on time.

Fool's Gold: Whoa, I thought this card was overrated, but this is too harsh! This is still great payload if you can trash down. I had it at #10.

Delve: I had it at #34. Yeah, it's that weak. No idea why people like it so much. Getting Silvers is that good?

Travelling Fair: Another overrated event. $2 is a pretty steep price to pay for an extra buy and/or topdecking. It can be good in some games with no other +buy, but often I find myself with enough money for 2 things I really want, but not enough for the Traveling Fair as well. I had it at #24.

Courtyard: Should drop even more. I had it at #22.

Save: I had it at #6. It's incredibly useful.

Hamlet: Finally gets its just deserts. It was one of the most consistently overrated cards in the game. I had at at #12.

Coin of the Realm: Seriously, this card is amazing! I had it at #5.

Stonemason: Good to see it drop. I had it at #11.

Raze: Good to see this still going up; I had it at #4. It's really really good. The comparison with Monastery is apt. They're both non-terminal trashers for $2. I think Raze's TFB and self-trashing make it slightly better, but Monastery is also great.

Fool's Gold: Whoa, I thought this card was overrated, but this is too harsh! This is still great payload if you can trash down. I had it at #10.

Delve: I had it at #34. Yeah, it's that weak. No idea why people like it so much. Getting Silvers is that good?

Travelling Fair: Another overrated event. $2 is a pretty steep price to pay for an extra buy and/or topdecking. It can be good in some games with no other +buy, but often I find myself with enough money for 2 things I really want, but not enough for the Traveling Fair as well. I had it at #24.

Courtyard: Should drop even more. I had it at #22.

Save: I had it at #6. It's incredibly useful.

Coin of the Realm: Seriously, this card is amazing! I had it at #5.

Stonemason: Good to see it drop. I had it at #11.

Raze: Good to see this still going up; I had it at #4. It's really really good. The comparison with Monastery is apt. They're both non-terminal trashers for $2. I think Raze's TFB and self-trashing make it slightly better, but Monastery is also great.

Strongly disagree about Delve. Picking a silver up with an extra $2 without needing an extra buy is really useful. You may not want much silver, but making it much easier to get a few is significant.

I may have slightly overrated Courtyard and underrated Coin of the Realm in my list.Monastery is great, but I don't think it should be #4. Encampment is #4 IMO, maybe even #3.Undecided about Raze. I really like Raze, but I don't think it's quite top 10 material.

Stonemason is funny to rank because it sucks at $2 but it's like a top 5 $6+ card. It's also crazy with Gold gaining, that's when it wouldn't suck at $2 but there's still no reason to buy it for $2. I strongly considered putting Stonemason at 1.

Encampment is too high, faffing about with Gold and trying to keep Encampments is often not worth the trouble. $2 for a Lost City is obvs crazy, but by the time this can reliably be a Lost City, unless you have a lot of +buy you're probably going to have to spend more than $2 on them anyway. Forcing Gold/Plunder in your deck is also bad when they aren't good buys either. Plunder is a worse Harem but I guess we'll talk about that in the $5's.

Monastery also seems a bit high, the main problem with it is that it doesn't work great in multiples. You start getting hands like Estate x2, Monastery x2, Copper and you can't just trash 2 cards.

Raze is amazing, it's almost Apprentice when trashing Estates and it's only a $2! That early cycling is so good! And it removes itself later? It's the bomb!

Courtyard and Moat/Hound need to meet in the middle somewhere, former is too high and latter too low.

Save and Borrow should probably be higher, but they're kind of in their own little category and Save is better than Borrow so at least that's right. I guess Alms is also in this category sort of, I'd put Alms above them because it can occasionally be crazy and it's great alongside trashers.

Lurker could be a bit higher I guess, but it's okay where it is probably.

Fool's Gold could probably drop a bit more, I rarely buy it and am often happy when my opponents do. There's just so much better stuff to be doing these days. Should be below stuff like Native Village at least.

The travellers are so clearly better than Chapel. Lots of stuff can compete with Chapel, Donate even eclipses it as the best trasher, but nothing can really compete with the travellers. I give Peasant the edge over Page mainly because of Disciple being broken.

In other news, my experience so far has been that two Monasteries turned out to be at least one too many.

It may be that a single Monastery is an absolute powerhouse if used correctly, but I'm pretty sure that two is a mistake. Right now, I still prefer Ratcatcher, mainly because of how excellent it is at mopping up those last few junk cards in your deck which other trashers struggle to track down.

In other news, my experience so far has been that two Monasteries turned out to be at least one too many.

It may be that a single Monastery is an absolute powerhouse if used correctly, but I'm pretty sure that two is a mistake. Right now, I still prefer Ratcatcher, mainly because of how excellent it is at mopping up those last few junk cards in your deck which other trashers struggle to track down.

That... seems completely backwards? It's much easier to find your junk cards when you draw most of your deck than to hope it'll show up in 5 random cards.

1 vote for Raze > Monastery. At the beginning of the game, you're usually not gaining more than 1 card per turn. So Raze is MUCH better for this part. And then later when you don't need it, Raze gets rid of itself. Obviously Monastery shines when you have a lot of Coppers in play and gained a lot of cards, which is probably later in the game, bu thinning is just so important early.

Much of Monastery's strength comes from the fact that you can open terminal draw with it, which allows you to cycle into Monastery a lot faster, which allows you to cycle into the draw a lot faster, etc. It still works with Raze to a certain degree because it's also non-terminal, but Raze can be drawn dead.